


unselfconscious

by Prim_the_Amazing



Series: Bingo [3]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Concussions, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 08:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: “Oh, Juno,” he says with despairing fondness. “You’ve gone and gotten yourself a concussion.”





	unselfconscious

**Author's Note:**

> Gen prompt bingo, trope: soft. 
> 
> Clearly, I went for EMOTIONALLY soft. This was originally supposed to be the h/c square, but then I just accidentally went straight for the sappy comfort. Consider this my apology for killing off Peter in my first fic.

It’s another case neatly solved, the day saved, which will make Juno happy. Peter managed to slip a few of the more valuable gems into his pocket during the arrest, unnoticed, which makes  _ him  _ happy. That, and Juno being happy. There really is no gem worth as much as when his dear detective’s brow smoothes out and the unhappy twist to his mouth eases, his shoulders straightening from their defensive hunch (like life is a cold cutting wind he has to brace himself against). 

Peter turns to take in the sight, and doesn’t find it. Juno’s staring off into the distance instead. 

“Juno?” he asks, concerned. Juno’s mind is a minefield of pit falls and treacherous twists and turns, and Peter can all too easily see how Juno’s mind could’ve taken this clean, deserved win and twisted it somehow into a failing. Peter just has to distract him before he gets too stuck on the idea to be persuaded to see the truth. “Are you alright, dear?” 

Juno blinks a few times and belatedly looks in Peter’s direction, and Peter’s suddenly unsure about his initial assessment. Peter is intimately familiar with how Juno looks when he angsts and broods, and this isn’t it. He looks… sleepy. Distracted. A bit confused. 

“Peter?” Juno asks, which immediately sets of alarm bells inside of Peter’s head. Juno always calls him Nureyev, except for maybe when either of them is on the brink of death or orgasm. He closes the distance between them with a few long legged strides and looks into his eye. Juno tilts his head to look up at him, and then sways drunkenly like the small motion was enough to make him dizzy. Peter reaches out to steady him on reflex. They’re very close. 

Juno buries his face into the crook of Peter’s neck, halting his investigation. His arms tighten around him, startled. 

“You smell nice,” he mumbles. 

“Oh,” Peter says. He’s as much an actor as a thief, and he can’t remember the last time he was genuinely at a loss for words, startled out of a smooth response. It was just so… sudden. And un-Juno like. Juno is normally far shyer and more hesitant with his compliments. He starts rubbing his back a little, soothing. “Is anything wrong, darling?” 

“No,” he says, tone a little unfamiliar. As if he were tired, but _ not _ cranky about it. An oxymoron when it comes to Juno Steel. “You’re here.” And then he puts his arms around Peter and squeezes as if to keep him in place. 

Peter spends a moment feeling dazed and like a romantic lead being professed eternal love to with the sunset as a backdrop. He takes stock of himself and his surroundings. Their backdrop is still a dingy alley entirely lacking in romantic lighting. Juno has been his lover for a long time now, he is merely being uncharacteristically forthright with his soft and vulnerable affections out of nowhere. Peter’s bruises ache. This is not some kind of dream. 

He gently wrenches Juno away from where he seems to be trying to become one with him through osmosis and aggressive cuddling and holds him out at arms length, giving him a long, careful scrutinizing look. 

His pupil is dilated and unfocused, and there’s tacky blood at his left temple. 

“Oh, Juno,” he says with despairing fondness. “You’ve gone and gotten yourself a concussion.” 

His snappy response is a beat late, and not all that snappy. “Not the first time.” 

And was there anyone there to take care of him then? Considering that Rita rarely actually goes out in the field with him, almost certainly not. Protectiveness rises up within him like the inexorable swell of the tide. Juno may be a vicious fighter, and the most clever detective he’s ever encountered, but he is unfortunately lacking in the self care department. And accepting care from others, for that matter. 

Care will just have to be subjected upon him unwillingly, then. Peter’s just awful, he knows. An incorrigible criminal. Absolutely unforgivable. 

He kisses Juno’s unblooded temple, and loops his arms around one of Juno’s in support. Juno stumbles and follows, leaning on him heavily. He would absolutely not be walking in a straight line without him. “Let’s get you home and in bed, dear. And some water, and perhaps some food--” whatever he can scrounge up from Juno’s sad, sad apartment, anyways. 

“And some scotch,” Juno says blithely. Peter doesn’t even dignify that idea with a response. 

Peter leads Juno to the passenger seat of his car, holding the door open for him like the sort of gentleman he deserves, and it takes until Peter’s buckled them both in and starting the ignition for him to splutter his indignation at being reduced to shotgun in his own damn car, Peter. 

Still Peter. He’d prefer for his detective to go without more than the necessary amount of head trauma, but he could get used to being Peter. 

“I’ll consider switching with you once your complaining grows more coherent, Juno,” he says, not looking away from the road even though Juno’s sure to make some sort of hilariously adorable angry face at that. Juno makes a lot of hilariously adorably angry faces, and easily at that. He can look at him as much as he wants once their lives aren’t endangered by it. Oh, the sacrifices he makes. He’s practically a martyr. 

“Show  _ you _ coherent, your _ face _ is coherent… really pretty too. Peter, I really like your face. It’s a good face. Jus’ saying.” 

Peter made it a habit to thoroughly distract Juno whenever he so much as picked up a glass, and was quite successful at it, so he’d never really seen him drunk. If he had to imagine what a drunk Juno looked like, though, it may be something like this. Slurring and earnest and utterly devoid of a filter. And  _ cavity _ inducing sweet, at least to Peter. It made him feel smug and fond and possessive, like he’d spotted and snagged the most precious gem out from everyone else’s noses to keep all for himself. He had no intention of letting him go. He’d take good care of him. 

“Thank you, dear,” he says, warmth in his voice that’s there all on its own, not a con or a trick, and he loves how his detective does that to him, makes him go genuine and natural and alive without even thinking about it. “I like your face as well.” 

There’s a stop sign that gives Peter just enough time to flick a glance towards Juno. To see slow realization dawn on his open face as the words sink in in his shaken and stirred mind, a complete mirror to his usual whip fast clever mind and habitual scowl. His face does that complicated, half ugly, all endearing, wobbly, scrunchy little thing peoples faces do when they’ve been complimented in a way that strikes them off guard and leaves them flattered and touched and flustered. Peter loves it. It’s one of his favorite expressions, and it took him forever to learn how to convincingly fake it. It’s one of the more  _ real  _ expressions that exists. 

The only reason that he doesn’t kiss him right then and there is because he has to keep angling his face away from the traffic camera. When Juno reaches over to clumsily thread their fingers together though, how is he to resist such temptation? He who is so used to devoting himself wholly to taking what he wants no matter how strongly others feel he shouldn’t? 

Their fingers intertwine, palms warm, and Peter determines to kiss the little brains his detective has left right out of his head once they get home. He squeezes his hand and Juno smiles, perfectly unselfconscious of his own happiness. 

He wouldn’t mind getting used to that either. 


End file.
